


do it for the memories

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Series: 15 days of fatt 2020 [2]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT, 15 Days of FatT 2020, Established Relationship, F/F, Team as Family, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: The Chime plays truth or dare, OR a retelling of the legend of Drillbot Taylor with extra attention paid to how cool and badass Aria looked, as told by Aria
Relationships: Jacqui Green/Aria Joie
Series: 15 days of fatt 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667332
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	do it for the memories

**Author's Note:**

> written for 15 day of friends at the table 2020, for the prompt "hands"
> 
> warnings for casual alcohol consumption and references to previous canon violence and injury (and temporary death)
> 
> set during some nebulous time after september but in an alternate universe where things are less sad

“Truth,” Aria said, because while she wasn’t a coward or a quitter, she’d taken one too many shots to be super confident in her ability to stand up without making a total fool of herself, and any dare of Mako’s would probably be designed to be as embarrassing as possible. Wow, she loved him so much. The annoying little brother she didn’t know she wanted until she had him in her life. All of her friends were the greatest: Mako, his neon crop-top flashing brighter than the lights of the club, one arm slung around Cass’s shoulder; Cass, their hair coming loose from their usual careful braids, their head resting on AuDy’s shoulder; AuDy, a line of shots in front of them despite not actually being able to drink, out of appreciation for the spirit of the game and also because Mako was buying; Orth, who’d been late, as usual, dark shadows under his eyes but still more relaxed than she was used to seeing him, more willing to sit back and have a drink and argue about anime with her than he’d ever been when he was their boss; and her wife, a warm solid presence pressed against her side in the crowded booth, as always keeping her grounded. “I love you all so much,” Aria said, cutting off Mako just before he could ask his question.

“Don’t think that’s the truth I was looking for,” he said, “but we love you too.” Jacqui ran her fingers through Aria’s hair, and she leaned into the contact, nuzzling her hand fondly. “ _Anyway_ ,” Mako said, “if you guys could stop being all in love or whatever, it’s time to embarrass Aria.”

“You’re just mad because you had to tell us about the time you thought drinking a bunch of soda would make you grow taller but instead it just makes you throw up.”

“He did not have to tell us this,” AuDy said. “I would have preferred he didn’t. He could have taken a drink or a dare instead.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a quitter,” Mako said. “Aria, what’s your most embarrassing injury?”

“I fell off the stage during my second concert,” she said, immediately.

“Really?” Mako said. “I gotta see if there’s video of that.”

“No, I’m just kidding,” Aria said, “as if I would do something so undignified.”

“Then what’s the injury? There’s gotta something dumb that you’ve done.”

“I’ve done plenty of dumb things,” said Aria, indignantly. “I’ve just never gotten hurt doing any of them.”

“What about when you lost your hand and also died?” AuDy said.

“You fucking snitch,” said Aria. “Also, that wasn’t embarrassing, that was badass. And you guys were there anyway.”

“I wasn’t,” Jacqui said innocently. “I don’t think you’ve told me this one yet, babe. Also, wait, can we go back to the part where you died?”

“Let’s not,” Cass said. “I’m too drunk to resuscitate someone right now.”

Aria flipped them off amiably and said to her wife, “I’m fine now. I got better. Also, I looked really badass so it was worth it.”

“Just tell the story, Joie,” said Cass.

“Okay, so,” Aria said, twisting in her seat to face Jacqui more fully, hands spread like she was about to introduce her next song, “we broke into a place to do some crime.”

Orth let out a deep breath and rubbed his sinuses and said, “I think you’re going to have to be a little bit more specific.”

“I don’t wanna give up too many details,” said Aria. “Some of you guys are on the side of the law now.”

“I hate to break it to you,” said Mako, “but you are also on the side of the law. You are literally in charge of a planet.”

“Fuck,” Aria said, briefly mourning the loss of her cool revolutionary lifestyle. “Anyway. We broke into a Snowtrak facility—you remember Snowtrak, right? They fucking sucked. One of our friends got kidnapped, it was a whole big thing. Also, Mako made a way bigger fool of himself on that mission, because wasn’t that the time he bought all those robots? Right, Mako? Why don’t you tell everyone about how you bought like sixty-nine robots for literally no reason?”

“Nice,” said Jacqui, and Cass gave her a high five.

“Excuse you, it was only thirty. And it’s your turn to tell an embarrassing story about yourself, save it for my next truth if you really want me to tell that story again.”

“Yeah, so anyway, we were trying to save someone who got kidnapped, and somehow Mako thought it was a good idea to like, pretend to be there to buy robots for like, legitimate business reasons, he had this whole business-sona-”

“Called Drillbot Tyler,” Cass chimed in.

“Drillbot _Taylor_ ,” Mako said, slipping into the horrible attempt at an accent that he’d put on for that job. “Get it right. He’s a respectable businessman, and he didn’t come here to be disrespected like this.”

Aria ruffled Mako’s hair fondly, and he stuck his tongue out at her, which didn’t seem like a very respectable businessman thing of him to do. “And they figured us out, obviously, because it wasn’t one of our better plans-”

“Did we ever have plans that were actually good?” Mako said.

“DId you ever actually have plans?” said Orth.

“How dare you,” said Cass, doing their best to pretend to be offended. “Both of you. All of those beautiful plans, and this is the thanks I get?”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Aria said, feeling like this tangent had gone on for too long and it was time to get back to the important matter at hand, pun intended, of how badass and hot she was even when she was getting shot at. “We were found out, and I was trying to get them to back off so I took out my gun and said, ‘the bells are ringing,’ and shot my gun into the air, just to scare them off, y’know?”

“And instead they shot your hand?” Jacqui said, entwining her own metallic fingers with Aria’s.

“And instead they shot my hand,” Aria agreed. “I didn’t die until later, once the shock set in, but like, I wasn’t dead for that long, it all worked out in the end. And they gave me this new hand, even though the old one wasn’t technically gone like, they didn’t shoot it all the way off, it was just real fucked up and I couldn’t really do much with it. And hey, at least this makes me look like even more of a badass, Mako also died on that job and doesn’t even have anything to show for it.”

“Excuse you,” Mako said, “I do too have something to show for that.”

“Besides all those robots?” Cass said.

“Besides all those robots! They had to give me a bunch of fake skin, wanna feel?”

“Nobody wants to feel your fake skin, Mako,” said AuDy.

“Please don’t take your shirt off here,” said Orth.

“I wasn’t gonna!” Mako said indignantly, releasing the hem of his shirt where he was starting to lift it. “There’s plenty of patches of it on my stomach. C’mon, Jacqui, this is what it means to be part of the family, it means you gotta feel my weird fake skin that I got from that time I died.”

Jacqui dutifully felt the patches on Mako’s skin and agreed that they felt weird and also kinda cool, which Aria thought was very nice of her, and she rested her head on her wife’s shoulder, hands still clasped together, their wedding rings clinking against each other as she rubbed her wife’s thumb softly with her own, basking in the tipsy glow of being safe and alive and in love and surrounded by family.

**Author's Note:**

> originally lazer ted was here too but I absolutely could not figure out how to write him so that didn't happen
> 
> title from for baltimore by all time low
> 
> big shout out to the folks over at the counter/weight wiki and also transcripts at the table because I used both of those as references instead of actually relistening to the relevant episode myself
> 
> as always, I'm on twitter as @s_artemisios


End file.
